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10 Questions with ... Chris Malone
April 27, 2021
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BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
- WSNA-FM Memphis (Rhythmic CHR) Assistant PD/On-Air/Promotions Coordinator
- WQOX-FM Memphis (Urban AC) Program Director/Afternoon Drive
- WBZJ-FM Raleigh (Urban AC) Program Director/ Afternoon Drive
- WQMG-FM & WEAL-AM Greensboro (Urban AC/ Urban Gospel) Assistant Program Director/ Afternoon Drive
- WRBO-FM Memphis (Urban AC) On-Air/ Imaging & Production
- WKAF-FM Boston (Urban AC) Program Director/ Afternoon Drive
1. How are things going for you these days?
I’m on the consultant/music scheduling side of the industry these days. Instead of working with just one or two stations, I’m now working with thousands. It’s a thrill to work with programmers, consultants, and station managers across the US and Canada. This role allows me to work across formats to help stations achieve their music scheduling desires, build new formats, and train users on how to get the most out of their music scheduler. Furthermore, MusicMaster is an amazing, family-owned company with so many brilliant, well tenured creators and consultants on staff. As a former MusicMaster user on the station side, it’s almost surreal that I’m working for the company.
2. What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
One night over dinner, my good friend Phil Zachary (who was the President of the company at that time) and the late Michael Tee (my former station consultant) dropped some unforgettable advice that I carry with me into every situation “stay humble and always adapt to the changes that come along”. This guiding principle can be applied to the good and bad times in life and in business.
3. Are you still on target with your goals?
Honestly, my goal has always been to be impactful and innovative regardless of where I am in my career. When I was on-air, it was my goal to impact my audience and be innovative every time I opened the mic. As a Program Director, my goal was to have a positive impact my on staff and create innovative programming and promotions day in and out. Now in this role, I’m focused on impacting those who need a little help learning music scheduling and being enough innovative to assist some of the sharpest programmers in the biz execute their ideas.
4. How challenging is your job?
Music programming is simple but building the engine to make a station sound bright and tight as well as balanced is a science that can get as complex as you want it to be, so I have to be ready to step in and assist clients with any number of issues and turn a wild idea into reality through MusicMaster.
5. Do you miss programming?
After launching a station in market 10 (Boston, MA.), with top 10 demo success, in less than 3 years, on a very limited 2,000 kw signal with naysayers who claimed, “Urban AC/R&B won’t work here”, yet we made gains anyway -- it was a perfect mic drop moment. I thought “what can top that?” I’ll admit, it feels very strange not being on-air with a show, given it was a constant thing for me over the last 16+ years; however, it was only obvious to look at something with more of a national impact and an opportunity to yet again stretch myself. There are many challenges programmers today that didn’t even exist a year ago, so I salute my colleagues who are making magic despite smaller budgets and smaller staff sizes.
6. Who have been influencers and mentors in your career?
Over the years, I’ve prided myself in being an open sponge when it comes to collaborating and networking with others in our business. I’ve been influenced one way or another by everyone I’ve met, but there are a list of ‘founding’ brothers and sisters who helped me along the way: Rick Wagner, Sherman Austin, Phil Zachary, Lisa McKay, Earle Augustus, Nate Bell, Sam Weaver, Sean Ross, Michael Tee, Derrick Brown, Jay Dixon, Elroy Smith, Scott Miller, Brad Carson, Myron Fears, Tap Money, Shilynne Cole, KJ Carson, Jay Brown have all been impactful on my journey as well as so many others – it’s impossible to name everyone. I’m very, very grateful for everyone who has taken the time pour into my think tank (even more former competitors)– it’s something I do not take for granted.
7. How do you see the future for music scheduling systems?
Future product testing is a big part of my current role, our team is always suggesting new ideas and we take feedback from our clients to present them to our development team to work into the music scheduler, which means the UX (user experience) is always under enhancement. At the end of the day, your music scheduler (which works for spoken word formats too) is only as good as your programming vision. If you can dream it, then it can be done – helping you see how to translate those futuristic ideas into a rule, clock, or unique sound code is where I thrive.
8. Do you think radio can survive the competition from all the other audio platforms?
Radio, like any other traditional industry is under disruption at a rapid rate. I’m under the strong belief that on the other side of any sort of disruption is discovery. We discover creative and new ways to reach your audience, generate revenue streams, and (as bittersweet as it may be) we discover ways to operate efficiently within the current economic reality. It’s easy for those us in the industry to think it’s only our business going through these challenges, but when you look at other industries like airline, retail, shipping distribution, you see that everyone is in the same boat.
9. Is problem solving a lost art?
My personal philosophy to problem solving is to ask a lot of questions and think deeper than surface level to uncover what’s really at the root of the problem. It’s not too uncommon to get a call where a client says, “my station sounds too slow, and ballad driven.” My first question is what’s the percentage of ballads vs. non-ballads are in your library. When we run the analysis, we begin to see the problem. If 40% of your active library is slow, that’s significant. We can then start to brainstorm ways to circumvent the issue by building better rules or revisiting the sound codes.
10. Are air personalities still necessary?
Absolutely, on-air personalities are connectors – connecting brands to people. They’re trusted friends and extremely essential to radio companionship element. Admittedly, I’m a little controversial in one my thoughts over “local or national talent.” I’d take a compelling, entertaining, well prepared out of market talent any day over a local talent, who doesn’t know how to be of service, cut through, and make their market presence known. The way consumers listen to radio local “just because” isn’t good enough. Local and in touch with your audience across all avenues is a beneficial investment for the talent and station.
Bonus Questions
What’s the funniest thing that ever happened to you in this business?
This one is embarrassing, but there was once upon a time early on, I was assigned to go out on a ‘van hit’ stop with the station’s promotions director. Of course, we were young rebels at the time – we decided to stop by the nearby Chinese food buffet (an actual buffet of all places) to eat before we setup. After we finished, it was a bad combination of too much food and too much heat…All we could to is park under the nearest shade tree and ‘rest our eyes’, only to open them 20 minutes later with listeners banging on the truck demanding prizes and quite a few missed calls from the station! One listener even threatened to send her cellphone picture of us napping to the station and post it to social media if she didn’t win tickets to the big concert (we slid those tickets her way without hesitation). Big lesson learned, just park in the back next time.
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